You lie in bed,
blissfully ignorant,
while I tuck my knees under
my chin and sway
back and
forth.
True picture of disturbed.

My mind is racing,
except
I do not see the checkered flag reminding me that I have been here
before.
Each thought feels like it did the first time - the sting of each insult -
whiplash.
And there is no sign of a finish line.

This is the first time I have written in months.
Maybe this time it will help me change gears,
visualise that checkered flag,
see the finish line.

'You don't have to be so angry all the time.'
If your mind were doing
laps,
infinitely,
it would be exhausted,
you would be exhausted.

My lap times are slowing,
I am spending more time on the self-loathing nowadays.

In a race against myself, who will lose?
Tune in tomorrow night for the next episode of Insomnia.

Always my love is more.
Never enough.

The rain is never apologetic about falling.
Neither am I.
Loving you happened as the rain does:
first the heat,
the steam of your breath,
condensation,
clouds on my lips
and now these words pouring down.
Hard, fast, irrevocable.
Falling for you happened as the rain does:
naturally.

You sound just like him
Thinking that your words
Hold as much gravity as
His.
Thinking that they slip out of your mouth and grab at my ankles, tugging me to the ground.
But the foundation you've created is made out of quicksand and all your words would pull me down to drown.
Sorrows drown as I down my fourth glass of stupidly red cherry liqueur.
It tastes like children's cough mixture.
A panacea just like you.
But i miss him. The one who gave me the wounds that you've taken the time to suture up.
His foundation was solid. His words were real and always brought me back to him. I'll never stop loving him. You're not ready for my love and he never stopped taking it from me.

Now
everything is heavier,
every
single
word
you say
delivered like bullets from a gun, sometimes hammered across
but always
tugging on your weak heart
bringing it
up
through the tight confines of your muscular oesophagus,
spewing bits, spluttering, shooting flecks at my face.

You bleed and you gush and you push all
of these words
out
onto me so that you
can breathe
again
for just a second.

What you don't
see
is that you've hurled a
mass
at me,
your blood staining my chest
and the back of my hands as I wipe it off my cheeks.

You are so passionate
about your pain.

It is not the issues that I tally,
it is your negativity
- your darkness -
the way you lap up the dramatic twists and live in this
disgusting
suspense
because a stressful state is the natural habitat
of your battered heart.

I am fighting here.
I am fighting to not let your way become mine,
to fill my heart with a light that defies your darkness,
accepting that I cannot save you
as you would contest the safety of my flame or you would contain a candle lit
for you
only to suffocate it -
just as you do yourself.
Maybe it is all you know.
Maybe it reminds you that you are alive.

But I'm not looking for painful reminders of existence,
I want to live.

I love you.
I am terribly afraid
I have lost
you within yourself to yourself
and now only you can
save yourself.

Forgive me for finding joy in between
your hurling -
in moments of silence
in your arms.

Today I saw someone that looked like you.
She had your build,
strong shoulders but no *******.
She had your hesitant open-mouthed smile with the incisors that stick out a little too far.
The shaven sides, an edgier hairstyle that always suited you.
Even her fingers looked like yours
and she handled everything with gentle caresses, just like you did.
She walked like a man though.
You never walk like a man.
I could not stop staring.
I wanted to get to know her
but she was probably nothing like you.
No one is like you.
I wanted to hug her
but she probably would not bury her face in my neck like you did.
I wanted to kiss her
because I had never kissed you
and maybe if I did
you would have stayed.
I could not stop staring.
I miss you.

Thoughts of
You
consume me
- my entire being -
To the point where my fingers being to write feverishly and
My lips part slightly as they would in anticipation of your kiss
But now just to precede a wordy and rabid rebuttal in my defense.
My breath is shallower because my heart beats faster because my brain is electrically alive with evanescent memories of us -
Attempting a resuscitation of
You.

Words so inadequate to describe the
Pandora's box being keyed at by these thoughts of
You.
Silence that was once our long-distance embrace, now
choking the life out of my eyes
and shattering the soul out of my words.
It's as if
You
were the ground underneath me
as well as the
gravity holding me down. Now,
You
are gone and my horizon is limitless
but I have no rest, no shore to wash up upon.

You
gave me such stability, such balance,
a means to remain poised,
a sincere sense of calm,
my panacea.

I turn around to surrender to my anchor
but the rope is severed ,
leaving me to wafture on the susurrous offing until
the storm cracks me in half and
sends me
down to where
You
have been all along, on that ocean bed, motionless,
with a piece of rope still attached to
You.

Anchor arms outstretched as if to call out for
our silence to once again become our long-distance embrace.
I once was a whole hollow hull
and now I am only bits and pieces without
You -
entirely peaceless.

Never judge a book by its cover - they say.
Never believe a man's word over his actions - they say.
Never trust without reason - they say.

Why not? - I say.

Humanity (as a virtue) is being crippled by humans as they
stride
past the crippled man, hunched-back and desperate to extend,
to stand up,
to reach out
for that can of coffee at the grocery store.

As they violate, debilitate and penetrate our
minds by starving
us of
education
and
taunt
us
with
grant
money.

As they reduce our
complexity and significance and capabilities
to
stats
charts
numbers
lines
dots
.

As they stand, staring
up
eleven floors
at a flailing, failing student ready to
jump.

As they stereotype us
into boxes
that we use to hold our belongings -
our interior design.

As they spend more
money in one day
than they
pay
the gardener over
a week.

As they scoff down ketchuped french fries
after saying they were
starving
whilst they edge
forward
at the
robot
to
ignore
hungry begging children.

As they complain about being
alone
when the others around them are also
human.

That's just it.
The 'they' that we always speak of,
'They'
are us.

Unsheltered, not oblivious -
we see the misery, suffering,
pathetic pain -
but we are ignorant of the
barefoot woman with
a load
on her head and
a life
on her back,
asking for a
lift.

Some of us see the strain
but convince ourselves that our efforts would be
insignificant,
assure ourselves that it is
hopeless,
we are helpless.

Science and religion
seem like parallel lines but
they
converge on the point that
Mankind
is a superior species.
'Made in his image.'
'Increased cranial capacity, developed the ability to reason.'
Yet we use that magnificence to justify our
INcapability?

Advanced beings in an age of connectivity and
so disconnected from the essence of our own kind.
We decide
to be
alone.

There are rainbows of
'umuntu ngumuntu ngabantu'
but Ubuntu becomes
'don't want to'
and apathy is what makes us insignificant
- indifferent and inhumane.

To those who
can read this,
we
are hypocrites
- together -
which means that we are never alone and thus we are made
able.
We are not helpless, we just
Help Less.

I refuse to hope less in humanity
and allow us to be coaxed into an inferiority-complex
when we can have
progress and
success but

Only after we have
oneness.

'Cape Town
is not in SA,'
she said.
My mind darts back to
the bus.

We sit
in an overly-cooled double-decker
like sweating bottles in a plastic cooler-box
- jerking and clunking and
squirming - skin stuck to PVC comfort
and upstairs,
breezing through
the city, taking in the sights.
Tourists.

I am a tourist in my own country.
We all are
because we cannot
span a hierarchy in
one lifespan.

For those that doubt -
let it be known that our land
is rich.
It can be noted in our gold
which brought the interest of European nations -
attracted to the glow of ore and the glint in our river rocks,
allowing them to watch
our brown-skinned beauties,
with clay pots and earthy skins beaded
with sweat, sway away
only to follow them
(not with sight alone)
and surrender the crown jewels
to enrich our land - a new born culture.

They knew our land was fertile.
They saw the potential of our fruit.
They brought the slaves with them.
They gave us coloured children,
European red in their veins and now picking white grapes off the vines.
They never wanted to leave
so they fermented,
barreled, corked.
They gave us jobs and homes and vaalwyn.
They took a lot
- our gold, our jewels, our women, our soil -
but they introduced
diversity.
We are rich.

But why is he so poor?
Don't look now
but on your left is a beggar.
Coloured,
clothes discoloured.
Unaware of our presence,
he digs through the refuse with a
growling stomach.

We all stare -
a double-decker full of eyes aimed
at the oblivious forager -
I turn my gaze.
How is it that we have
so much and so little
at the same time?
How is it that our president spends our income on Nkandla
and not this boy?
How is it that Helen and Patricia put up portable loos along the shanty fence
but have forgotten to feed this poor soul?
How is it possible for me to sit in uncomfortably icy air
while my brother burns under the glare of my fellow travelers?

He and I,
we are of the same land.
We are both rich.
Yet both of us display a reality
that neither of us truly deserves.

'Cape Town is in SA,'
I say.
We just have no idea.
Ignorance is indeed blissful
but it is also most wasteful.

Our land is rich and our people
deserve more than a blind eye.

Today
I took a shower.

The monsoon drummed
agaist my body,
waking all my organs up
and shaking them into place.

The steam
opened
up my pores,
pouring out impurities.
All that negativity
like strands of black hair
getting caught in the drain grate,
refusing to be irrelevant
but now not knots
in my back.

All of a sudden,
my lungs
remembered how deeply they could breathe.

The geyser hummed a solid
Aum
through my spinal cord,
charging up my brain
with little sparks.

My distressed skin,
scarred by stress-induced scratches,
stings and tingles
as if to say,
'Please, no more'
and I sigh in complacency.

There is something so ***** in being drenched.
Maybe you forget you
and who you have become
and what the world has shown you.
Maybe your molecules feel
connected to the earth again.
Newborns are 75 percent water after all.

Today,
I took a shower
that reminded me to savour
the life in me
and in doing so,
save myself
from myself.

Eyes wide open,
mind tightly shut,
we play victims to the postman
slotting news and letters
where little light filters through,
only as he sees fit.

Grotesque, gross manufacturers
spewing out page after page after page
of page three scandals -
of rich brats waxing lyrical,
American hip-hop DUIs,
fat cats cat-fighting.

Media
breast-feeds her gullible men
and milks the misfortunes.

We are part of the orchestra -
synchronised puppets looking to our
Master
to tell us
how
to read the notes.

Outside
there are flimsy flyers
advertising freedom
that have morphed into paper-planes,
but are impenetrable of ignorant masses,
flitting around the heads of the blind -
like cartoon characters after
being beaten up by
fists.

It is injustice.
Peel the scales from your eyes
and open the flood-gates, let forth the criticism!

Ask why an American singer's ten minute jail sentence
is more important than an Afghan girl's sentencing to be gang-*****.
Ask who the ten percent of the South African population are that receive sixty percent of our gross national income and how to alter that socio-economic gap.
Ask what is to become of learners who pass with thirty percent and if that is even possible when books aren't being delivered to schools.
Ask where one can find manifestos instead of accusations from each political party.

Do not let them dictate
your truths as
CAPITALISED LETTERS
with no urgency.
Do not let them confine
your insight to the ink on a page.

We are worth more than glossy sensationalism.
We are worthy of urgent honesty, transparency and enlightenment -
herein lies true freedom.

The liberation of the mind.
The uncoiling fist of a freedom fighter revealing the truth held within.

Amandla awethu.

Sometimes I worry
about the amount of things
I will have
left
to say to you next time -
should I make a list?

How will I account for segways?
(You take a lot of detours
and I follow in fear that you'll walk
away,
but I'm expected to find my way
back.)
I'll bring breadcrumbs next time;
maybe ducks will eat them though.

As long as I'm with you, anywhere
feels right.
Like on your kitchen counter,
sipping sickly sweet grape juice
while you microwaved popcorn.

Or on the stairs in the basement -
where I discovered your heart
beat
and you discovered that my lips are sweet.

Or crouched on the tiles behind the cabinet
with tears puddling around me
and I text you instructions not to call
but you
still
tried,
7 times,
and you said that it's okay if I say nothing.

Back to square one:
we find ourselves with phones to our ears -
(yours possibly taped to your head because
you like to eat at
1 am)
in silence together.

At some point, I cave -
'What's the point of this? We could be silent and not on the phone with each other.'

You reply - 'It's just better this way because I can
Feel you.'

We'll never run out of silence
because now it's all we have.

Hi
My middle name is inadequacy.

Don't ask for the first and last
because i
can't
provide
that.

I am the less than sign,
projecting
something greater -
an aspiration that you will never be.

I am every
'almost,'
'could have,'
'let down.'

I am in the settling.
I breathe out disappointment.
I forget to be better.

There is one good and one bad thing about me.
Both of them are
Hope.

It makes me and breaks you -
the anticipation.

Your rage erodes
through your smiling teeth
and makes holes in
your throat,
spluttering
corrosive through your hearty laugh.
Your rage is like battery acid on your tongue
fueling your acerbic words.

My rage is rope making the ring in which
me, myself and I
battle it out in my head
cyclically.
My rage is a steely triad of me, myself and I
in my mind,
a metal mental instrumental
triangle tapping incessantly
ringing the ting ting ting of
soft subtle slurs.

Our rage is visceral.
Eternally internally infernal,
crackling embers dying within
leaving us shells of ourselves -
warm bodies with blackened ash souls
daring not to breathe should someone notice the smoke.

In predictive text
on my cellular device,
the word suggested after I type
'I'm'
is 'sorry.'

I guess that shows how often I say it.
And if it's me saying it then it shows how often I mean it.

I'm tired of saying it.
Mostly,
I'm tired of meaning it.

"Fake it 'til you make it"
has become
"Faking it IS making it"
and I have grown
weary
of this battle
against myself.

There is no chance of victory
and there is no
love
that will triumph.
Breathing is laborious.
My heart no longer strains through its cage.
My limbs are flaccid and my spine is weak.

All you will find,
should you dare to seek,
is an old carcass with rotting flesh,
a burnt bony cage
within which lies a skewered melting heart
oozing black mess.

I lost her.
She slipped like ashes through my fingers,
leaving only her fingerprints on my fingertips.

I am done trudging through her loss.
There is nothing ahead
and everything that lies behind is obsolete.

I have drawn the line.
I have written these lines.

They say 'when life gives you lemons, make lemonade.'
Had 'they' made lemonade before,
'they' would know just how much sugar is required to do so,
and life rarely throws that at us.
Even if it did, it would be hard to pick up, what with it being dissolved in residual lemon juice and all that.
But that's beside the point.

She stands there being
pummelled
with
lemons.
Not even sour-faced
although the acidity erodes her open wounds.

I ask 'does it not burn?'
She replies 'just tingles like a lemony sun'
and then smiles that crescent silver lining
which tames the acrimonious bite that makes me wince.

Little lemon pip tears drop from my eyes
and she collects them in her palms.
'Just a yellow lemon tree,' she sings in her zestful tone.

She may not be the type to catch, juggle and juice them,
but if she could,
she would be the sugar in her lemonade.

We used to drink tea together.

The tea bag bleeds.
Weeping into hot water,
the sunken sac looking
up to the surface,
spoon-suppression under
tiger lily swirls of earthy aroma.
Blood-orange.

Fish it out -
wrinkled, lame, limp bag.

Milk it
until potpourri dryness ensues,
until the leaves are bitter and lifeless.

Discard it -
the tattered fragile mess.

Now, I am just your tea bag.

You say my name with
that weird drawn out drawling 'a'
and incorrect intonation
but I find affection in your
recurrent mistake
and I love you for it.

You look at me with a mischievous
smirk,
corners of your mouth turned up at different angles,
not exactly Cheshire but still somewhat
eerie and *******
and every time, I give into bubbling laughter.

The way you touched me:
as if every ridge on your finger
-your entire identity-
was capturing the dimensions, curvature of my frame,
the detail
(every beauty spot, every dip, every scar)
only to have you look at me
furrowed
bewildered brow
to ask whether we'd always be this
Happy.

I guess not.